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Minister of Tourism and Sports, Nikolina Brnjac, in HRT's central daily, she commented on the results of the Croatian tourist season and announced the adoption of a new law on tourism.
She expressed her satisfaction with the season so far, especially referring to the pre-season, which was at the level of 2019. There are also great announcements for the post-season, and the minister emphasized that this is exactly the goal - the development of year-round tourism.
"When we look only at the numbers on the continent, we see that tourist traffic has increased compared to 2019.", she told HRT.
Namely, year-round balanced tourism is a strategic commitment of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, and Brnjac believes that the results show that the development of year-round and evenly distributed tourism is possible.
"And all that we do through the projects of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, through the national recovery and resilience plan. So, these are projects that finance the construction of new hotel facilities, accommodation units, health tourism, new facilities that raise the very quality. In this way, it is possible and the very development of small and medium enterprises and the functional regions themselves", said Brnjac in the central daily.
She added that the CNB has 38% higher revenues than last year and that "excellent tourism results" are expected at the end of the year. The minister emphasized that through all the additional content, "we are creating exactly the offer we want, which is year-round, evenly regulated tourism".
Prices of accommodation and services
Regarding high prices, she stated that with the increase in quality comes an increase in prices. "Value for money, the hoteliers have done their job. For that matter, we have 50 percent and more facilities that are 4-5 stars. The campsites are also over 50 percent high quality, 4-5 stars", explained Brnjac and added that it is up to the guests whether or not they want to reward the price increase.
However, he believes that some landlords "unreasonably" raised prices, but also that the government helped in "preserving jobs".
"When we look at private accommodation, that means renters, some who unjustifiably raised prices, then lowered them. In this way, they had a negative impact on the entire destination, because raising prices is irrational. And when we look at the Government of the Republic of Croatia, it stopped from the beginning along with the tourism sector - as far as the measures to preserve jobs are concerned. Then, by regulating electricity and gas prices - if this had not happened, let's say for example, households themselves, but also small businesses, would pay six times more for electricity, three times more gas", the minister stated.
Law on Tourism
In her diary, Brnjac announced the adoption of a new law on tourism and referred to data on thousands of new beds. She pointed out that a new law is needed for this very reason. When the reform of the tourism sector was started, when writing the tourism strategy, special attention was paid to the number of beds. It was observed that in 2019 there were approximately 190 thousand new beds, she stated.
She identified excessive supply versus demand as one of the problems. This is why, Brnjac points out, a new law is being passed that will regulate that part through "management plans".
"When you look now at that aspect of supply and demand, the supply is far greater than the demand, which has been shown this year by many renters, and that is exactly why we are passing a new law on tourism, which will be calculated through management plans - and it will have to be done through management plans carrying capacity - for the first time, destinations will have to calculate how much commercial and non-commercial accommodation they have and then manage their destinations based on that., she clarified.
The European Commission gave a positive assessment
The minister confirmed that she is satisfied because the ministry received "a lot of positive proposals" during the public consultation.
"From the beginning, when we were working on that law, we involved a large number of stakeholders. That means from the entire tourism sector, from the academic community to the associations of communities of cities, counties, municipalities, and the tourism sector. So, it was important to include them right from the beginning, precisely because this law is extremely important and demanding. Today, the European Commission gave a positive assessment of this law.", she revealed and added that nothing major will change with the amendments to the law on local taxes.
With the amendments to the law on local taxes, everything remains as it was in the previous law, she said. She emphasized that it is up to local self-government units to decide whether or not to introduce a tax.
"The only thing that changed precisely at the request of those leaders to the Ministry of Finance is the height. It is now from 0,6 to 5 euros per square meter. Everything remains the same - it is up to them to decide whether to introduce it, and those who introduced it can stay at the level they had", she told the central daily.
When asked if she expects a more massive introduction, she replied that the choice is up to the mayors.
Photo: Ministry of Tourism and Sports
Source: HRT
